Stop co-opting mental health language

When I originally sat down to write a blog post for this week, my plan was to write about one of my major pet peeves: when people say that they are a “little bit OCD.” I’ve been known to interrupt the conversations of strangers to advise against saying that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the same as being persnickity and anal retentive. But then I found this truly excellent blog post by someone else and I realized I don’t need to stumble around trying to say what another person has already written.

So instead I’ll adopt the broader version, which is this: can we PLEASE STOP co-opting mental health diagnoses for describing personality traits (looking at you, OCD and ADHD) or for difficult situations (this one is aimed at you, trauma)? LIKE JUST STOP.

I get why people say that putting their hand in something disgusting was “traumatic” or saying that they had an “ADHD moment” when they put their keys in the freezer without thinking. From my observations, there are two main reasons why people use this kind of language. One is to make light of a problem, and the other is the opposite—to legitimize.

But. If you haven’t been diagnosed by a mental health professional with the disorder you are naming dropping, you should stop saying these phrases. Why?

A few reasons.

First, if you don’t have a diagnosis, you shouldn’t be taking the label. It’s a type of cultural appropriation.

If you actually have a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), then I have no problem with you saying you had an “ADHD moment.” You’re claiming your diagnosis, recognizing that the problems come out in moments of time and are not constant across all situations, and there’s some cute self-deprecation in there (I’m a sucker for self-deprecation).

But if you don’t have that diagnosis, you don’t know what it’s like to hold that diagnostic identity. You don’t know that many people take years to get an accurate diagnosis, and that any psychiatric diagnosis requires significant psychological distress and functional impairment across life domains (e.g., work, school, friendships, relationships). 

Which is related to the second reason you shouldn’t co-opt diagnostic labels: many times the function seems to be making fun of what can be a very serious and debilitating problem.

Saying you are a “little bit OCD,” aims to use humor to make light of perfectionism and attentiveness to organization. But I promise you that people who actually have OCD know that it’s impossible to be “a little bit” OCD and are probably judging you for not actually knowing what you’re saying.

The third reason you shouldn’t use diagnostic labels is that you really don’t need them for legitimacy.

I see people overusing the word “trauma” all of the time to try to emphasize just how scary or difficult an experience was. But in the DSM-5, which is the “bible” of diagnostic symptoms in the United States (and is similar to the ICD-11 which is used in other countries), a trauma is a life event where a person could have died or experienced significant bodily or psychological harm (including sexual assault). Listening to a professor drone on about a boring topic is NOT traumatic. Going through a breakup is (typically) not traumatic. A massive blister on your foot from walking too far in uncomfortable shoes is not traumatic.

Yet I’ve heard people use the word “traumatic” to describe all of these things.

An upsetting, difficult, or emotional event is not inherently traumatic. Getting cut off in traffic could result in death or serious injury, it’s true. Car accidents can be traumatic, for example. But using the word “traumatic” in that setting de-legitimizes serious traumas like being dragged down the street by your hair (which is horrible and absolutely traumatic for many people, particularly the women in domestic violence relationships who are most likely to experience it), watching cabinmates drown in a flash flood and barely escaping with your life, or many other things that would be what the DSM calls a “Criteron A” trauma.

Instead of using diagnostic labels, just say what you mean.

I personally think that we should bring back Freud’s “anal-retentive” which is a phrase that means basically the same thing as “a little OCD” but has more fun visual imagery of someone trying to hold in their poop.

If you were scattered and distractible and found keys in your freezer, just say that you were not thinking clearly (note: maybe lets not say you had a “senior moment” either, ‘k?).

If you experienced a strong emotion that lingers for you, maybe even about an event you keep thinking about, you can just say that. It’s OK to have emotions, and they can be unpleasant even if they don’t reach the level of trauma.

We’ve come a long way in reducing the stigma toward mental health concerns. Not 100%, but more people seem willing to seek therapy and talk about their diagnoses than ever before, which is great. Psychological problems are part of the conversation now in ways they were not even 20 years ago.

BUT overusing language and co-opting diagnostic labels to refer to personality traits or to legitimize emotions actually hurts people who have impairment and distress with their diagnoses. We can help them by letting them keep their labels, asking questions to understand them (note: do YOU know the difference between obsessive compulsive disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder?) and not using diagnoses to describe your mindset at a given moment in time.